Richard Clark, KB7QHC wrote:
"(don`t fall for the monster under the bed stories of gazillion volts at
a bajillion amps)."

Good point! It`s akin to: "You can`t protect against a direct hit!"

Oh yeah? How about 10,000 medium-wave broadcast stations struck by
nearly every charged cloud passing overhead? Sometimes several times a
minute for a long time period. The listener is often unaware of the
instantaneous carrier drops to extinguish the arcs initiated by the
lightning strikes. And, one of the most important lightning opponents is
a large coil of large wire in each tower lighting wire at the base of
the tower. It keeps lightning as well as R-F out of the electrical
service to the station.

If tower lighting chokes stepped up the lightning, they would all be
replaced with Austin transformers or some other technique such as shunt
feed of the radio towers to eliminate the base insulator. Truth is,
lighting chokes are very effective at keeping lightning out of the power
supply.

Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI